Everybody agrees that US public schools are completely fucked, but nobody seems to know what to do about it. Here’s an idea - copy everything about Finland’s system. Their kids rank miles above ours in every metric, and they spend less money per student to accomplish it.
We like to laugh at Blooywood for its low production values and ridiculous dance numbers in every movie regardless of genre, but every once in a while they manage to come up with something truely beautiful. This scene from “Magadheera” is one of those times.
(Source: youtube.com)
Flying Donkey Frightens Russian Sunbathers
No doubt Yakov Smirnoff would have something unfunny to say about parasailing donkeys in soviet Russia, but Russia is all capitalist now, so screw his worn out joke. This donkey flies for the free market!
Seriously. It was part of an advertising gimmick.
A German student created a major traffic jam in Bavaria after making a rude gesture at a group of Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang members, hurling a puppy at them and then escaping on a stolen bulldozer.
Probably not the best news story “evar”, but certainly the best of the week. (via Digg)
I’ve always been impressed by mashups the same way that a cave man would be impressed by a flashlight. I have no fucking idea how music works, so to me, mixing two different songs together is pretty much voodoo. Well the Australian comedy group Axis of Awesome (epic name, BTW) just took away some of the magic. As it turns out, about half the pop songs ever written use the same four-chord progression (fun fact - they’re all ripping off Pachelbel’s Canon in D). In this bit, they string together several dozen of them in a four-chord medley of win. Now, off to the internets to find more stuff from these guys! (via Digg)
This probably won’t come as much of a shock to anybody with half a brain in their head, but blanketing a city in surveiliance gear doesn’t actually do much to fight crime. London has about one million CCTV cameras watching its citizens, yet last year London law enforcement was only able to use those cameras to help solve about one crime per thousand cameras.
Not a great return on a £500 million investment that is abused more often than it is used. (via Boingboing)
As you may or may not know (if you don’t, maybe you should read the news once in a while), Australia is in the process of building a firewall to censor the internet. Joining fun-loving countries like China and Iran, they have compiled “secret blacklists of child pornography sites” that no Australian is able to access. Predictably, the secret list leaked to the internet. Even more predictably, much of it has nothing to do with pornography.
Enter the anti-censorship group GetUp. They’ve created this amusing video which explains why government censorship - for any reason - is not a good idea. They’re trying to raise enough money to get the video played as a commercial on Quantas flights (which have TVs at every seat, and a very captive audience). I don’t have any money to send them, but I do wish them luck. (via Boingboing)
Australian Man Extracts Revenge Against His Cell Provider With A Tank
He knocked down 6 cell towers and a power substation before they caught him. Madness. (via Engadget)
